


to love is to destroy

by Alice_not_in_Wonderland



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, DreamSMP spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Morally Dubious Decisions, Paranoia, Pogtopia, Sad Wilbur Soot, Tommy is the MC of this SMP, Tommy needs a hug, Villain Wilbur ?, Wilbur is having a rough time, Wilbur-centric, fundy is wilbur's son, honestly get Wilbur some therapy, l'manburg, manburg, more like morally grey vigilante Wilbur honestly, wilbur needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26906857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_not_in_Wonderland/pseuds/Alice_not_in_Wonderland
Summary: This is what it means to love too much.Wilbur looks his men in the eyes, feeling all at once like he did a broken general in a cramped obsidian room, staring his own failures in the face in the dark shadows behind his friends' pupils; the same haunted, dead look watches him now only there is no war, there is no blood, there is nothing but the taunting laughter ringing in his ears and the wall of people staring at him like they have never seen him before.—Or, Wilbur loves L'manburg, Tommy is worried, and things go down from there.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 9
Kudos: 262





	to love is to destroy

**Author's Note:**

> I have so much work to do but of course I wrote this instead. This stream was so much fun I’m excited!!!!
> 
> Tw/cw: slight language, flashbacks, explosives, fire, arguments, spoilers from Wilbur and Tommy’s latest streams (pls tell me if you want me to add anything, I’m kinda rushing posting this)

This is what it means to love too much.

Wilbur looks his men in the eyes, feeling all at once like he did a broken general in a cramped obsidian room, staring his own failures in the face in the dark shadows behind his friends' pupils; the same haunted, dead look watches him now only there is no war, there is no blood, there is nothing but the taunting laughter ringing in his ears and the wall of people staring at him like they have never seen him before.

He reaches for his son, the other hand coming to cover his mouth. This cannot be happening. "Fundy?"

The look he gives him is entirely familiar, is a ghost of a salmon swimming away for the last time, is so completely and utterly _Sally_ that it nearly sends him to the ground. It is anger and bitterness and a wall inches from the surface, his hackles raised and ears flattened back and for one moment Wilbur sees his son small and helpless and screaming in his arms as he stares at a river leading to the ocean with tears in his eyes, only able to think about how he never really knew Sally, at all.

"I don't know who you are," his son spits, lips curled back to reveal his canines and only Niki is screaming, wailing as Schlatt's laughter echoes echoes echoes and Tommy is there, watching Tubbo like he doesn't know what to believe, and Wilbur grabs him by the sleeve and shouts.

"We have to leave, Tommy!" An arrow comes hurtling down near him, and he remembers raining fire, he remembers arrow after arrow sailing through the sky covered in flames, he remembers smelling the smoke through the dirt of the Embassy he remembers counting and watching Tommy on that path with a bow in his hand. "We have to go, Tommy, come on-"

An arrow sinks into his shoulder and he shouts and Tommy finally snaps into himself, pulling Wilbur along as they leave their land, their people behind. The laughter echoes and tears pour from his face and this is the river and his people are salmon, all swimming away from him because they don't need him anymore, this is him watching the water flow knowing that no matter how fast he swims he'll never see any of them again.

\---

The flag is burnt and walls are gone; courtesy of his son, the most, they say. His people- Schlatt's people, seem happy. He hears through whispers that the city, his beloved city, no longer does as much as bear his name; it's called Manburg, now.

A fitting name, he thinks, as he stares at the barren wasteland that had once been his home. A place borne from the folly of one man and destroyed by the ambition of another. He catches the bright orange of his son's fur as he moves across the place, dutifully placing cobblestone in an ugly sort of grid--an apartment building, he's been told--having abandoned the blues and pinks of his jacket for a smart-looking suit and tie, black and crisp. Wilbur watches him for another minute, then another, tracing the smooth swish of his tail from one side to another, the care with which he places each block. He's always been methodical, a careful planner when he wasn't going for one prank to another. Outside of his L'manburg- Manburg suit, he looks older, less ruffled and more clean-cut. Wilbur chokes on his own words and wonders when his son grew up.

Without its walls, it looks empty. A house there, a lake there; Wilbur wonders how he'd ever imagined this place a country at all. No wonder Dream had thought them insane; the place was practically barren, a few pieces of land that they had arbitrarily shoved a flag in and called their own. He watches his - Schlatt's men as they move around, watches Jack work on his house and Tubbo follow Schlatt and most of all his son as he builds the foundation, one block at a time, and wonders why everyone will ever leave him.

It isn't until sundown that he leaves, feeling chilled far deeper than from just a simple night breeze. The sky is painted a bright, vivid red.

\---

Tommy almost gets them killed, all bluster and confidence without ever thinking about the consequences. Wilbur thinks of blood trapped under his fingernails and how he'd once been the same, thinks about when he was more naïve, thinks about how he'd led his men straight into their deaths over and over again in the war and cannot help the pit of rage that boils in him. He has learned the hard way what it does to do without thinking, has seen it in the look Sally gave him before leaving him forever, in the broken looks of his men and realizing they were only children he sent in a war they could not win, in the backs of his friends that they turned towards him when Manburg was taken from his hands.

"You have to think, Tommy," he bites out, thinking about himself and Tubbo hiding in their tunnel, begging for the others to walk on past their hastily made wall, "You can't just focus on yourself and nearly get everyone _killed_ because you were too busy worrying about your own shit!"

"What do you mean? You know, I realized something Wilbur," Tommy glares at him the same way Sally had, Fundy had, and the only thing that flashes through his mind through his anger is this is how he'll lose the only one he has left, "You really like to boss me around, don't you? It's all 'do this! do that! don't do that!' with you, isn't it, well I realized something Wilbur. I can just not listen! I'll just not listen to you and what then, huh-"

"You're so reckless, Tommy!" Wilbur laughs, the sound bouncing off the cold stone walls. "You know what? There is a reason you know, and this is exactly it!" He steps forward, almost without realizing it, and Tommy takes a step back. "You're reckless. You never _think_ , you just do whatever you want and then everybody else has to follow you around and fix your mess. You're irresponsible and careless and it's going to get yourself killed, but not only that it's going to get other people killed as well, Tommy. There is a reason you were never president and _never will be!_ "

Tommy looks like he's struck him and Wilbur finally steps back, shoulders shaking. Tubbo watches them both from the corner with wide eyes. Tommy opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then closes It, then repeats the process another two times, before shrinking in on himself and turning away in silence, his armor clanking as he walks away. Wilbur's breaths are harsh and loud in the silence of the tunnel, and Tubbo's eyes flick from Wilbur to Tommy's retreating figure like he doesn't know who to follow.

Wilbur walks away, his boots scuffing against the wood, and feels completely empty.

\---

"Were we the bad guys?"

Tommy looks scared of him, in a way he's never been before. "Wilbur?"

He laughs, long and low and soft. His hands curl into fists. "Were we the villains the whole time, Tommy?"

Tommy watches him like he doesn’t understand. He never understands. He's never understood, before, only understands _fighting_ and all Wilbur can think is how this time he'll give something for Tommy to fight about.

"They - we just inserted ourselves in power. Schlatt was elected, democratically, and now we're planning on taking power _back_ ," he grins. "We were never the good guys, were we Tommy? We were the villains all along!"

"Wilbur, you're not making any sense, big man." Tommy steps back. "How about you calm down a bit and we can just talk about it."

"I've been a fool, Tommy," Wilbur thinks of Sally, thinks of Eret, thinks of Fundy, thinks of everyone that has left him with a sword in the back and his heart in his throat and wonders how he didn't see it sooner. "We've been the villains. We-"

His voice breaks. There is no winning this. Should he take back Manburg, all he's doing is becoming the villain everyone else knows he is. He cannot stay in exile forever, cannot bear a world just outside of his former nation, watching it fall to pieces without him. There is nothing left.

"Even if we beat Schlatt, we lose, Tommy, don't you see that?"

"No- no, Wilbur," Tommy still doesn't understand, the same way he never does. "All we have to beat Schlatt and we can have L'manburg back. What are you on about?"

"We have _no one left_ , Tommy! Everyone's betrayed us!" Wilbur waves his hands wildly. "My son might as well be the president's _dog_ at this point, everyone else doesn't care about us at all, Eret's probably just going to betray us a second time because being a traitor is the only thing he's good at, who _knows_ what Technoblade wants, and Tubbo's probably just waiting for the perfect time to stab us in the back-"

"Don't say that about Tubbo," Tommy nearly shouts. "He's on our side. What are you on about?"

"We have no one, Tommy!" Wilbur laughs. "There is nothing left but-"

There is one thing, left. One thing he can do.

"We can destroy it all."

"What?"

He can feel the desperate laughter rising in his lungs as he looks Tommy in the eye. "If I can't have L'manburg, _no one can._ We can destroy it all. Raze it to the ground."

"No, Wilbur-"

"Remember what Dream did, during the war? We can fill the entire ground with TNT. Dream just wants to weaken both of us, he'll agree." He grins so wide his cheeks hurt, shoulders shaking. "We'll destroy it. We'll make it so no food can grow there ever again, make the whole place a barren wasteland. We can burn the whole city to the ground."

"You're being reckless, Wilbur," and if those aren't his own words being thrown back at him. "You're- this isn't you. If you think that this is how we'll recover L'manburg, then- I'll join you. But this isn't the right thing to do. And what's the point in anything if we've lost all hope?"

Wilbur can't help his own laughter. He lost all hope a long, long time ago.

"No, you're not seeing the truth. There is nothing, Tommy. Manburg will never be ours again. At least after this, it won't be Schlatt's, either."

"Wilbur, please."

"You can't stop me, Tommy. Join me. We have to do this." It's the only thing they have left.

Tommy wilts. "Can I have a moment- a moment to think about it?"

He practically runs out the door, and Wilbur is left to his own silence. He has nothing left. He has no _one_ left.

Good, he thinks. That means he has _nothing_ left to lose.

\---

"Your TNT," Dream says. He presses it into his hand. "Use it wisely."

Tommy watches helplessly. Wilbur smiles.

"You've done me a very great service, Dream," he says as he tucks it into the enderchest, where no one will be able to stop him. "Thank you very much."

\---

Tubbo walks up to the microphone.

Wilbur holds the last piece of dynamite in his hands. Dream had the decency of giving them the chance to surrender. Several chances, really, but what Wilbur remembers most is the other man's cloak flapping in the wind as he stood in the hole in Manburg's wall, one piece of TNT on the ground and a flint and steel in hand. He had asked them to surrender, asked them one final time to raise white flags, before lighting the match and the world falling into flames.

His enemy had that, at least. Wilbur doesn't care enough for that, anymore.

He doesn’t care for anything much at all.

Tubbo looks nervous, wearing a suit that is far too big for him, tie slightly loose around his collar. Wilbur had needed to help him with his necktie when he was a part of Manburg, but he doubts that Schlatt would do the same. Everyone in the server is here.

"Hey guys," Wilbur places the piece of TNT on the ground, looking everywhere but the podium. "I, um, thank you all for being here." He brings the piece of flint and steel in his hand. "I really think this is going to be a really great celebration, you know-"

He lights it and runs before the world goes white.

\---

Wilbur blinks once, twice. He's in a lot of pain, but he's…alive. He didn't expect that.

"There you are, big man."

Tommy's voice is rough. Wilbur looks over at him; he looks tired, more tired than Wilbur's ever seen him, and sad. Wilbur reaches for his inventory to get a piece of food to heal-

"Have this, Wilbur."

Cool glass is pressed in his hand. It's a health potion; he looks back at Tommy skeptically. Since when did this kid know how to brew potions? There are footsteps from his other side and he whips his head around.

"How is he, Tommy?"

It's Tubbo, suit crumpled and dirty, but looking perfectly healthy. Wilbur looks at him in shock, a thousand questions in his mind at once. How?

"He'll be better once he drinks your potion. I think that'll heal the rest of it."

Tubbo grins, wide and genuine. "Good. I was worried; he was hit the worst by the blast."

"How are you alive?"

Tommy shoots him a look. "Drink the potion, Wilbur."

He does but keeps his eyes on Tommy to make it clear he won't drop the subject. Tommy sighs.

"I knew of your plans, Wilbur. We're in the bunker."

Wilbur swallows. "Oh."

"Nobody was hurt really bad except you because you were the furthest away. I saw you on the side and we began evacuating everyone." Tommy grins, somewhat sardonic. "Guess you can't say anything about me and my tunnel vision, huh?"

Wilbur still doesn't _understand._ "So everyone's fine? Everybody's alive?"

Tubbo nods. "Everyone's just in the other parts of the bunker right now. We thought you'd do well in your own room."

So he failed, then. Even at this. Part of him wants to scream. The other part of him wants to sleep and never wake up.

"Someone wants to see you, you know." Tubbo sounds hesitant. "You can wait if you want. You still need to heal."

Wilbur shakes his head. "Let them in."

Tubbo shoots a look at Tommy that Wilbur cannot understand but Tommy seems to read instantly because they move to stand up at the same moment and walk towards the door. Tubbo was someone that Wilbur never really understood, as President, but then so was Tommy. So was everyone. No wonder they jumped to get rid of him so quickly; he was so wrapped up in his own mind that he never bothered actually _ruling_.

"Hey, uh, Will."

The voice is accented, somewhat awkward. Not as high pitched as Tommy and Tubbo, but higher than Wilbur's own. And above all, it is _familiar_ , familiar in ways that make his shoulders shake and heart hurt, a voice he has not heard in far too long but knows so well, all the same.

"Fundy?"

"Hey."

He doesn't know what to say. Never knew what to say. Instead, he traces his son's face with his eyes, looks at how he's slicked his fur back in the front instead of letting it stick out to the side like he used to, looks at his suit and laughs a little on the inside at how the collar isn't flipped all the way in the back and how the shirt's untucked, looks at familiar magenta eyes that he remembers from a cub tucked in his arms so long ago and laughs.

"When'd you get so big, kid?" he says, and Fundy tumbles into his arms, and he holds his son like he's never going to be able to do it again.

"I missed you," Fundy whispers into his shoulder, and Wilbur holds him tightly, face tucked on top of the other's as tears fall from his own eyes.

"I missed you, too."

\---

"This is what it means to love too much," Dream says softly as Wilbur walks out to the carnage for the first time.

"…I did this." The bunker is exposed on the side, water covering its wall, and the entire land is ravaged down to stone. It's barren and broken and destroyed worse than the first time, bits of buildings standing in one pile, the remains of a tree lying in another, and he swallows thickly.

"Did you regret it when you lit it?" Dream asks, his voice rough, and Wilbur turns away.

"Did you?"

They sit in silence, a sliver of a moon hanging in the sky.

"Yeah," Dream says, after a long while. "I did. I regretted it the moment I looked up from the TNT and realized what I was about to do."

"Realized that you were destroying the very thing you loved?"

Dream hesitates, for a moment, then nods. "Yeah. That."

The night echoes with foreign clicking and hums that make up the language of Endermen, and a breeze threads through Wilbur's hair.

"I loved L'manburg. I couldn’t bear watching it from the outside, watching it become something so unlike what it once was, and so I had to - I thought I had to destroy it."

"Destroy it so nobody could use it against you ever again?"

Dream's words hit dead on, but there's something about admitting that, the vulnerability that comes with it that has the words stuck in his throat, so he turns away. Dream stands there in silence, face tipped up to watch the moon.

"We're foolish leaders, you know." There's the edge of a laugh in his voice, soft and slightly bitter. "So wrapped up in our own shit that we lose sight of everything that really matters."

"And end up destroying the things we care about because we'd rather have it gone by our own hands than someone else's?"

"Exactly."

The silence is a comfort, free of the oppressive weight of responsibility and painful memories that it has been choked with for so long. Wilbur breathes and for the first time in ages, his lungs seem full.

"We'll rebuild this place, together." Dream says, and Wilbur feels a soft, _real_ smile on his face.

"Yeah," he closes his eyes, at peace. "We will."

**Author's Note:**

> This arc!!! This!!! Arc!!! I’m actually so excited for how this is going to play out. I’m a huge fan of Dream and Wilbur as foils in the SMP apparently bc both fics I’ve written have focused on that, lol. I also want to write something with the Dreamon hunter thing, we’ll see. Thanks for reading!! Pls feel free to comment, I always love hearing what you guys think. I can’t wait to see where the SMP goes from here!!


End file.
